# PFRA asks charities to share donor attrition/retention data for five years

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/01/12/pfra-asks-charities-share-donor-attritionretention-data-five-years/
- Published: 2010-01-12T08:25:14+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

The Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA), the self-regulatory organisation
for face-to-face direct debit fundraising, is seeking 15 member charities who will
commit to pooling their donor attrition and retention data for the next five years.

The PFRA’s annual F2F Donor Attrition and Retention Survey (DARS) is already claimed
to be “the most robust and complete picture of donor attrition and retention across
any fundraising method”. The creation of the core group is intended to make it even
more robust and valuable.

The third annual round of DARS gets underway in March. Devised and researched by
Morag Fleming, Head of Fundraising at Scottish social care charity [Quarriers](http://www.quarriers.org.uk),
and [Future Fundraising](http://www.futurefundraising.co.uk) managing director Rupert
Tappin, its results will be published in June at a seminar following the PFRA’s 
AGM.

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Fleming, who is also the convenor of PFRA Scotland, said: “Forty-four charities 
took part in the survey in 2008 and 2009, but only 10 of those participated in both
years. That hasn’t affected the quality of the results because each time the total
numbers of donors of the participating charities was well over a quarter of a million,
so both years’ findings were extremely robust.

“But we now want to add another layer of robustness to the survey, which we can 
do by establishing a ‘core group’ of charities, including some of those doing the
highest street and door volumes. With these charities on board, we can be totally
confident that every year, DARS will reflect the biggest players in F2F fundraising
and allow us to set an attrition benchmark that is unparalleled in the fundraising
sector.”

So far five charities – Quarriers, EveryChild, Shelter, Epilepsy Action and Concern
Universal – have agreed to be part of the DARS Core Group. Their data is anonymised
so that not even the two researchers are aware of individual charities’ results.

Members of the DARS Core Group will receive a rebate on their annual membership 
registration fees after three years and, at the end of the five-year period, they
will be rebated the next two years’ membership fees and receive a year’s free membership.

Charities interested in joining the DARS Core Group should contact [Morag Fleming](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/mailto:mo***********@***********rg.uk).
Charities interested in taking part in the 2010 survey but not wishing to become
a core member should contact PFRA’s head of communications [Ian MacQuillin](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/mailto:ia*@******rg.uk).

The third year of the PFRA’s DARS is likely to be the first with an international
dimension, with involvement from Daryl Upsall of [Daryl Upsall Consulting](http://www.darylupsall.com),
an expert in the international use of F2F.

www.pfra.org.uk

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